


The First Interrogation

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [153]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Discipline, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, How canon misled you, Internal Corps Politics, Justice, Politics, Psi Corps, Running Away, School, Telepath culture, The Corps is Mother and Father, The Psi Corps tag is mine, The Real Telepath Resistance Was Us, Worldbuilding, double standards, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: The first time Psi Corps Director Johnston tries to kill Bester... when he's only 15 years old.Since canon presents this scene from Bester's POV, and he's a kid who doesn't know what's going on, I rework the scene to show you all what was really going on - what the adults know, but he doesn't. (He didn't even know how much danger he was in!)The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!
Series: Behind the Gloves [153]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/677654
Comments: 13
Kudos: 5





	The First Interrogation

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

After a very long hiatus... I'm back!

We pick up the mission to FIX! ALL! THE! THINGS! with a story from when Bester was 15 - actually 14 in normal-age reckoning, because it's the spring and Bester was born in August, but he's 15 in telepath age-reckoning.

1\. A year or two earlier, Kevin Vacit (Bester's grandfather), at the end of his life, [asked Sandoval Bey to look after Al Bester after his death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12106929). (Reconstructed, not shown in canon.)

2\. Bester enters the Minor Academy, and Bey, though he's an instructor in the Major Academy, nonetheless looks closely into Bester's life from afar, talking with his teachers and other adults (such as Lt. van Ark) and looking at Bester's academic and personal record. (This is canon - Bey mentions having looked into Bester's record.)

3\. He sees that Bester has no social life - and this is bad - and decides to intervene to help him get one. [He asks Julia, one of Bester's former cadremates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358895/chapters/22887570), to invite him along on the group's off-campus trip. (This is also directly mentioned in canon - Bey says he was the one who asked her to ask Bester along. And so obviously he did this because he could see that Bester was heading in a very unhealthy direction socially.)

4\. Bester's been spending every day [obsessing about rogue telepaths](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14264988) \- very antisocial and strange behavior. This is Not What Psi Cops Do.

5\. Sandoval Bey, himself once the Director of MetaPol, has a very different outlook on life - that life must be lived FULLY, full of art and music and human connections. (His background is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17194646) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17239259).) He doesn't speak of it among the students, but it's well-known that he strongly disapproves of the abuses of the Cadre Prime system ([here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12665913) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680634)), because such abuses produce emotionally broken young people, not "stronger" people for the Corps. (He can't really say anything about it, because it would come across as disloyal, but everyone knows how he feels about it and why.) Bester just turned out worse than his peers, but I don't think he's the first kid Bey has seen emerge broken after surviving Cadre Prime.

Kevin Vacit did what he did, and now it's fallen to Bey to do everything he can to save Bester's life.

6\. So he tries to encourage him to get a social life. His cadremates didn't want to invite him because they thought he didn't want anything to do with them, but when Bey asks Julia to invite Bester, of course she wouldn't say no. To her surprise, Bester agrees, and comes along on the trip.

7\. But at the end of the trip, everything goes to hell again, because he goes AWOL. He offers to buy the train tickets back home if the group wants to grab lunch, and they agree. He sees a rogue telepath in the crowd, recognizes her, and decides to go off tracking her down. He buys the tickets home for the others, and one to Paris for himself (where the rogue telepath is heading). He brings everyone else their tickets, and tells them he's going to the washroom, but never comes back. He buys a black sweater to pull over his school uniform and hops the train to Paris. (All this is shown in canon.)

8\. When Bester doesn't come back from the washroom, his cadremates panic. They go out looking for him, and when they can't find him, they assume he's been abducted. This is TERRIBLY NOT UNCOMMON (see, the fate of Fatima Cristoban), and a reason that telepaths should never split up when off-campus - especially teens. The teens panic, feeling like this is all their fault - hadn't Al already been beaten up by a normal when they started their hike the day before? Wasn't it the job of the cadre to stick together and protect each other? Yes, Al always had a tendency to go off on his own... This was a town full of NORMALS, not like the night before when he'd wandered off alone into the woods. This was far more dangerous - why didn't they realize that? Why did they not think - why did they not consider it could be dangerous to go to the washroom alone in such a town? And hadn't they tried to warn him not to wear his school uniform on the hike, that this would make him a target?

Julia feels guilty because she was the one who had invited him along. Brett feels especially guilty, as the "older brother" figure who always looked out for him.

They call the Corps.

9\. Sandoval Bey: OH SHIT. THIS WAS MY IDEA AND NOW HE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED OMG!@#$%^.

10\. The Corps gets out there, and quickly realize from talking to the shopkeepers and looking at surveillance video that Bester wasn't kidnapped - he'd bought a ticket to Paris and a black sweater, and _intentionally_ run off. Bey calls ahead to the Corps in Paris to arrange for a Psi Cop from the local office to meet Bester at the station. It turns out that the guy who goes is also Bey's former student.

11\. Bey and a team head out to Paris, planning to pick Bester up there and bring him back. It seems everything is under control until they get word from the local office that the Psi Cop has been murdered, at which point Bey works All His Connections In The Corps and gets the entire Paris office to assist in the hunt for Bester, and they get the local police to assist, and a massive manhunt begins. Bey can only pull this off because he's the former Director of MetaPol (the top Psi Cop) - and though he had to step down for political reasons, senior people still defer to him. Unlike Bester, who thinks being "the best" means doing things "own your own," Bey understands how things really work, and is friends with _everyone_. And so in a real crisis, he can call in all those friendships to help him bring a student back home alive.

12\. Bey and his team catch up with Bester in a Parisian back alley, Bester having been shot in the chest by a rogue telepath from the cell he was chasing. Bey kills the rogue and captures his associate, and saves Bester. The team gets Bester to the Corps medical center and into emergency surgery.

Bester wakes up from surgery to see Bey standing there in a MetaPol uniform. He recognizes him, though they'd never met - he just knows Bey to be a senior teacher, and he wonders what Bey is doing in a MetaPol uniform. Bey introduces himself and tells Bester he's under arrest. (All in canon.)

13\. As we find out later, he is also the one who scanned Bester while Bester was unconscious. Bey is the one who notified the Corps about the location of the rogue safe house (so they could break up that ring) - the local office in Paris had no idea that was going on. He gets the whole story from Bester's point of view.

(Bey had the authority to scan Bester no matter the circumstances - teachers always have that authority over students, and Psi Cops always have that authority over any telepath - but it should also be noted that Bester was in critical condition, and even if he'd been a normal in that shape, shot by rogue telepaths, it also would have been legal to scan him.)

14\. Bey is also the one who wrote up the incident report to Director Johnston, doing his best at every point in the report to defend Bester even as he factually described what occurred. He knows that Johnston hates Bester for having been Vacit's favorite (for some unknown reason).

Bey clearly indicates in the report that Bester had no intention of abandoning the Corps and going rogue - he ran away to "play Psi Cop" on his own, for the thrill of it, not realizing this decision could be deadly for himself and others. He was a reckless and stupid kid, not a traitor. Bey explains what happened with the train cop - that the normal had been working with the Underground, and when Bester had tried to seek his help in apprehending the rogue telepath, the train cop had physically attacked him, and Bester had only acted in self-defense. Whenever there is any ambiguity, Bey frames the story in Bester's favor.

15\. And the other adults involved - the Minor Academy principal, the ranking Teeptown Psi Cop, and others - are fully on board with this plan. They know as well as Bey does that Johnston despises telepaths. They know he's been plotting against the entire telepath leadership of the Corps, against all of them, to try to frame everyone as a "traitor" and to eliminate them. They've watched over the last year as he has schemed against them all, as one by one Vacit's former aides have been forced to retire, have been exiled, or even outright murdered. They all know they could be next.

They know that eventually, he intends to eliminate everyone appointed by Vacit - by any means necessary.

16\. But that would be their fight, the adult fight. They would not let him do this to a child, no matter what Bester had done.

Even if they paid for it with their lives.

\-----

Comments in [brackets], edits to the text in (parentheses).

Deadly Relations, p. 76-80:

Al straightened his uniform and tried not to appear nervous. He stared at the heavy door for a moment, steadied his breathing, forced the rhythm of his heart to slow from improvised jazz to a brisk march. He pushed the door open and stepped into a room he had never yet had the misfortune to see.

Most of the classrooms and dorms were spare, white, clean, designed to keep the mind free from distraction. This room was just as minimal - starkly so - but was weighty and dark, as if cut and burnished from a basalt cave. A single shaft of light awaited him, and beyond - raised above, behind a long bench - he could make out the five members of the review board, faces spectral in the dim, amber light of reading lamps.

"Alfred Bester, come forward."

He stepped into the light, resisting the urge to squint. Of those regarding him, he recognized only two. One was Dr. Hatathli, the principal of the Minor Academy; the other was Rebbekah Chance, the ranking Teeptown Psi Cop. Seated in the center was a third, who looked familiar, but Al couldn't quite place him. Someone important, probably from the director's office. Maybe even one of the assistant directors.

[It is a dark room, so he cannot yet see that the man in the center does not wear gloves.]

"Mr. Bester," Dr. Hatathli began, "is accused of unregistered and unsanctioned travel. He applied for and was granted a two-day leave in the Alps. At the end of those two days, instead of returning on schedule, he purchased a one-way ticket to Paris."

Ms. Chance cleared her throat. "This fact registered with our monitoring system, but as he is an exemplary cadet we gave Mr. Bester the benefit of the doubt. When - after several hours - he did not contact us, we dispatched a special detail to investigate. An officer with the Paris office went to the train terminal to meet Mr. Bester. He was found murdered a day later. We suspect he was killed by rogue telepaths or their agents."

[This story doesn't make sense - they wouldn't let a Minor Academy student purchase a ticket to Paris and sit there ignoring it, "exemplary student" or not. It makes more sense that the delay was caused by the time before his cadremates reported his disappearance, which would still be less than several hours.]

Dr. Hatathli took all this in, glancing down occasionally at the display in front of him. Now he turned his craggy, square face toward Al. In the dim lighting, he resembled vids Al had seen of the statues on Easter Island, his eyes invisible in shadowed sockets. "Mr. Bester?"

[As is proper in Corps culture, [children do not talk to their teachers unless asked to do so](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12656673).]

"Yes, sir. I did apply for a two-day leave to go hiking with my old cadre. When we were coming home, at the train station, I recognized Lara Brazg."

"And why didn't you report this immediately?" Hatathli (asked).

Al started to answer, but the man in the center cut him off with a raised finger.

"I have a better question. Mr. Bester," (asked Director Johnston). "How did you so easily recognize this rogue telepath?"

Al suddenly remembered himself, long ago, when he and Cadre Prime had played that fateful game of cops and blips. The normal in a military uniform, at the statue of William Karges. Al remembered speaking to him. He remembered the flash of hatred...

This was that man. (And he wasn't wearing gloves, or a psi insignia. This same man was now the director himself!)

Al took a deep breath. "Sir, I hope to be a Psi Cop one day. I like to go to the West End station and look at the hunt lists."

Ms. Chance nodded. "That's confirmed by the officers there."

The normal didn't turn toward her. His voice, however, was of deep winter. "When I require information, Ms. Chance, I will ask for it."

"Yes, Director."

[The director is intentionally infantilizing Ms. Chance here, by requiring her, the _ranking Teeptown Psi Cop_ , to remain silent unless he asks her to speak. This would not be lost on Bester. It signals that he considers all telepaths to be below him, without agency or authority, and that he has no qualms about humiliating any of them at whim.]

Al felt his face twitch and (cursed to) himself. _It's the director himself. And not the one I knew._

"Mr. Bester. Let us dispense with parceling out details. You went AWOL. You did so in the apparent company of a rogue telepath. The security officer of the train was found bound and gagged, and the Psi Cop who was to arrest you at the Lyon station murdered. You disappeared for several hours in Paris and were found, wounded, in the company of not one rogue telepath, but two. A scan while you were unconscious revealed that you knew the location of an underground safe house." He paused to glare at Al.

"Well?" the director said, after a moment.

"I'm sorry, sir," Al replied. "I was not aware I had been asked to speak."

"Speak," the director said, disgustedly, waving his (bare) hands.

"Sir, if I was scanned, and the information passed to you, then you must also be aware that I never had - nor ever could have - any intention of becoming a Blip. My allegiance is first, last, always to the Corps. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father."

As he said it, he heard Chance and Hatathli murmur it along with him. He felt suddenly more confident.

[I wrote about the meaning of this expression in this context in this essay [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438188).]

"You must know, sir, that my intention was to apprehend Lara Brazg myself. I see now that it was foolish, but with all respect, sir, it was not the act of treason you seem to suggest."

"Don't tell me what I suggest, Mr. Bester."

[He really has no idea the hot water he's in.]

"Yes, sir. Shall I continue, sir?"

"Please. I'm aching to hear what you have to say."

"I followed Brazg onto the train. The train cop was her accomplice. By the time I was actually on the train, I started to think I ought to get help. When I told him of her presence, he tried to hit me with a shock stick. A scan of the cop will show that."

"We cannot scan him without his permission. He will not give it."

_But you can scan me anytime you like, despite the law_ , Al thought. And it was clear that the director had intentionally underlined that point, emphasizing that Al had only those rights the director allowed him to have.

[Up till this point, Bester has always seen the "rules" as good. Brett tried to tell him on the camping trip that the Psi Corps handbook had been written by normals ("Normals wrote the handbook, Al"), but he didn't quite get it. ("The Corps wrote the handbook. The rules are good.") He's never questioned for a moment the fact of life that the adults could scan him any time they wanted - he grew up with Grins, after all. Whatever they do is for the good of the Corps. He's a little older now, but it's the same - any scan done to him would obviously be for the good of the Corps.

Or it should be, but now something is wrong. The director is presenting this simple truth - that he can be scanned any time an adult wants - not simply as "something every good and loyal telepath knows to be true" - and not something bad at all - but as something that makes him _inferior_ to normals. "That train cop who tried to kill you," the director is saying, "that train cop who works for the Underground and attacked you, he's actually the one with rights, _not you_. You have no rights under the law, only whatever 'rights' I allow you to have, at my mercy and whim."

It totally doesn't make sense.

The error here is the line "despite the law" - the law never said otherwise. It's the _director_ who is saying that the laws do not protect him. This mistake, that it's against the laws and regulations for Bester to be scanned, is repeated a little later on in _Deadly Relations_ as well. It's an error. Psi Cops can legally scan any telepath they want, in their criminal investigations. _See Mind War_.]

Al decided that there was nothing to do but continue. "I never saw the officer from Paris, and I have no idea who murdered him, though it might have been Nielsson. I knew nothing about Nielsson-"

"Except his name, it seems."

"Yes, sir. The same way I knew Brazg's."

He outlined the rest of his story, while the director sat in stony silence. "As I said, sir," he said, in finishing, "if I was scanned, you will know I am speaking the truth. If the scan was incomplete, of course I volunteer to be scanned again, as deeply as necessary."

[Again, as any good and loyal telepath would do. Justice, to telepaths, is based on _truth_ , and this is how the truth is discovered. If the director doesn't believe him, then clearly the issue was a problem with the scan, so obviously he's volunteering to do it again.]

"I don't know that you are speaking the truth. I am not a telepath. I can only judge the facts at hand and testimony given."

Al felt a wave of shocked outrage emanate from the other review board members, and he suddenly understood.

The director hated telepaths. He did not trust them. And perhaps - for some unknown reason - he hated Al Bester in particular. The thought wasn't his alone, but filtered lightly through the room, and Al understood that some or all of the panel members were sending him a signal. _It's us against him. You are with us. Be careful._

[And it's not just that he hates telepaths - it's that he's completely subverting what "justice" in their society means. The real truth of what happened doesn't matter - only his own power. The "truth" of someone's crimes will be exactly what he, and he alone, says it is, not what any lousy _telepath_ says it is, based on a _scan_. (We all know those sneaky telepaths just cover for each other, and can never be trusted, right?)

Meanwhile, Bey, who was supposed to be at the meeting earlier and who was delayed, shows up and saves Bester's ass.]

A throat cleared behind him. "Director, Mr. Bester was injured trying to apprehend Nielsson and Brazg. That he was shot by Nielsson is absolutely clear. That Nielsson planned to shoot him again is absolutely clear. I fail to understand the relevance of this entire line of-" he paused and finished with faint note of sarcasm "-'questioning.'"

[Bey can just walk in and pick up the conversation where it is because he's a strong telepath, a fact that's not going to please the director one bit.]

Al didn't turn, but he knew the voice, and it felt like solid ground suddenly appearing beneath the feet of a drowning man. Sandoval Bey.

The director aimed his ice-chip eyes behind Al.

"Are you advocating for him, Dr. Bey?"

"Absolutely. He is impetuous. He is also fifteen. Neither of those qualities, last time I checked, is considered criminal. Insubordinate, yes. Punishable, yes. Criminal, no."

"Indeed? Very well, Dr. Bey. You think he should be punished, punish him. I command him to your custody, and will hold you responsible for any future transgressions on Mr. Bester's part."

[He is saving Bester's life here by placing his own in jeopardy. Let's be clear here - as much as Johnston hates Al Bester, taking out Sandoval Bey is a MUCH bigger priority. Bester's a kid. He has no power in the Corps. There's little to be gained from killing him, at least now. Bey, on the other hand, is one of the most respected officials in all of Psi Corps, along with maybe Natasha Alexander. Eliminating Bey is a priority if Johnston is to crush telepath leadership in the Corps and cement his absolute power. So he's more than happy to remand Bester to Bey's care, knowing that any future infractions on Bester's part - small or large - can now be blamed on Bey and used against HIM instead. And Bester doesn't have the FIRST CLUE this is what's really happening.

Bey is a man of his word, and a man of his honor - he promised Kevin Vacit he would look after Bester, that he would protect his life, and protect him from the next director - and that's exactly what he's doing.]

"That's fine with me, Director."

"I did not ask for your approval." [Johnston makes it clear that the "approval" or consent of telepaths is _irrelevant_ \- he alone has absolute power.] He turned a withering glance upon Al. "In the future, Mr. Bester, I urge you to remember your place. You are a student, not a Psi Cop. The Corps cannot abide even the appearance of disloyalty. Do I make myself clear?"

"Very clear, sir."

"This panel is dismissed."

[Then Bester is dismissed out to the hall, where the adults keep talking, and the director again makes it clear to Bey that any future misconduct on Bester's part is on him, Mr. Bey. There really isn't another choice - the adults aren't going to let the director execute a student for treason, especially one who never committed any treasonous act. That is not "justice," that is evil.]

In the hall, Al closed his eyes and felt his limbs tremble, ever so slightly. He wasn't sure he ought to, but he paced for a time, until Bey came through the door and nodded at him.

"Dr. Bey-"

"Walk with me, Mr. Bester."

They stepped out into the morning sunlight. Bey gestured across the lawn, and they started across it.

"I just wanted to thank you, sir."

Bey's head chopped in a nod. "Don't thank me yet, Mr. Bester. Despite what I told the director, your behavior was inexcusable. Your unthinking actions resulted in the death of a Psi Cop and of another telepath. I should have let him have you."

[It's not true, of course - but he doesn't want Bester to know that. He wants to Put The Fear Of God in him, so to speak.]

"Why didn't you, sir?"

"Because, Mr. Bester, the director is a mundane. Because he has no sense of justice. Rest assured - I do."

[And remember, in Corps culture, "justice" not only is based on the truth, but also on the principle of punishment followed by _forgiveness_. It means, as I've mentioned elsewhere, a severe punishment (partly to teach Bester to respect authority and partly to show the director that he's taking Bester's punishment seriously), followed by complete forgiveness and a welcoming back into the family. I'll show you that next.

Only telepaths have the "right" to hurt other telepaths, and only for the good of the Corps. Mundanes - whatever power and privileges the laws give them - do not have that _moral_ right.

Bey gives a bit of a mixed message - even as he "threatens" Bester, he calls the director a "mundane," signalling that despite what's coming, he and Bester really are still on the same side. Bester doesn't understand. Bester thinks he's been rescued from the director, but then later thinks that what Bey does to him is worse than anything the director would have done. He is, as Bey puts it, "pitifully naive."]


End file.
